19.2.01

Bókadeild Føroya Lærarafelags 45 years

The Bókadeild Føroya Lærarafelag, a Faroese publishing house that’s been looking after the children for 45 years

NORDIC LITTERATURE 2001BY BIRGIR KRUSE

The Bókadeild Føroya Lærarafelags, or The Faroese Associationof Teachers’ Publishing House (the B.F.L.), wasfounded in 1956 in acknowledgement of the vital importanceof providing Faroese children with books in Faroese.

When the B.F.L. was founded, they didn’t only havebooks for children and young people in mind: school textbookswere a high priority, too. At that time almost all thetextbooks on the islands were Danish. But then a properFaroese educational publishing house was founded, theSkúlabókagrunnurin, and from then on the B.F.L. gave uppublishing school-books and concentrated exclusively onbooks for children and young people.

Right from the start, and for many years afterwards, aboard consisting of five teachers was in charge of all thepublications. All the work was done after school, and bookswere published whenever they thought they could afford it.As time went on, however, they began to be subsidised bythe Lagting, the Faroese parliament, so it became possibleto publish several titles every year, together with a children’spaper, Barnablaðið (The Children’s Newspaper),and a Christmas book, Mín jólabók (My Christmas book),which was issued for the 50th time this year.

In 1985 they decided to hire a business manager – parttimeto start with – but only a year later the position wasupgraded to a full-time post to cover all their publishingactivities. At that point, the Faroese Lagting had decidedto increase the annual grant, and it paid off in the form ofregular publications, so that it was now possible to coverthe needs of the market for – especially – Faroese picture books.

Today there are two people on the staff, althoughone of them is still not a full-time employee.The present manager, Niels Jákup Thomsen, is a primaryand lower secondary school teacher, who trained atTórshavn College of Education. He went on teaching rightup until the time he was appointed as the manager of theB.F.L. in 1996 – but he had actually already been associatedwith the publishing house for ten years or so beforethat. His assistant, Eydna Magnussen, is likewise a primaryand lower secondary school teacher.

– Niels Jákup, has the publishing house always made childrenand children’s books its highest priority?

- Yes. We see it as our business primarily to publish booksfor children and young people. But we do have some otherkinds of books in our program, to the extent that time andfinances permit – some non-fiction, for example, somebooks on our history and culture, and even the occasionalnovel.

- What is the volume of your output at the moment, comparedto the entire Faroese book market?

- Last year we published 43 titles, which corresponds toover 25% of the Faroese book market. Our percentage isusually somewhat higher, but 2000 was an unusually goodyear for the book market generally: there was a total of 161titles in Faroese, as against, say, 121 in 1999.

- How do you market your books? Do you have any specialarrangements?

- We have a book club, the Barnabókaklubbin, thatwas founded in 1986, initially for the 3-7-year-olds, butit was e xpanded later so that it now includes children ofall ages and young people. Today the book club has about1, 650 members, divided up into four age groups: 0-2-year-olds; 3-6-year-olds; 7-12-year-olds; and 13-year-oldsand upwards. The first three age groups get eight booksa year, the teenagers only four. The book club has actuallygrown so much that it has become the financial basisfor all our publications. If it didn’t exist, it would be impossibleto publish the number of books for children andyoung people that we do. The entire population of theFaroe Islands is only about 47, 000 people, so it takessomething special to sell a run of 5-600 books. It can bequite easy if you focus on a single book, but when youhave 30-40 titles it’s a very dif ferent story.

- Is it difficult to get hold of Faroese manuscripts?

- Both yes and no. We r eceive, on average, 4-6 manuscriptsa year. At present mainly manuscripts for picturebooks and books for the 3-7-year-olds. But we need moremanuscripts for older children and young people. At themoment, we know that two manuscripts for children’sbooks are on the way. They are both by new author s,Brynhild Andreasen and Liss Hansen. Last year welaunched another new author, Vivian Guðmundsson withthe children’s book Ýr. On that occasion, a young illustrator,Annika Lávík, made her début too, and she hassince illustrated Maud Heinesen’s Í vøggustovu við Helenu(In the chrêche with Helena).

- What do you do to encourage or motivate Faroese authors tostart writing?

- We have arranged competitions a couple of times –the last time with rather a disappointing har vest. But that’sa long time ago now – maybe we should try again. Otherwisewe give a lot of help and encouragement to thoseauthor s who do try their hand at the job. Everybody onthe Faroe Islands knows that we are behind the publicationof practically all the books for children and youngpeople, so most of those who decide to try their hand atwriting books for children or young people automaticallycontact our publishing house. Then we comment on themanuscript and say whether we want to publish the bookor not. In connection with the Faroese Arts Festival, theListahátið Føroya, in the Scandinavian House on August7th-19th this year, our contribution will include a widelyadvertisedshort story competition – for adults. The ideais to collect shor t stories that deal with and reflect presentdayFaroese society. When the manuscripts have becomeavailable, we are going to release them on the f irst day ofthe festival. A selection of the short stories, too, will beread on the Faroese radio, the Útvarp Føroya.

- What has been your biggest success so far – what you are mostproud of?

- Two of our picture books, ólavur Michelsen and ErikHjorth Nielsen’s Rossini á Skoradali (The Faroese horse1990), and William Heinesen and Edward Fuglø’s Veingjaða myrkrið(The winged darkness 2000), were publishedin collaboration with publishers in other countries– in Denmark, Iceland and Germany. A good deal of workwent into both projects and, to crown it all, Rossini áSkoradali was awarded the Scandinavian School Librarians’Prize in 1991. But otherwise we prefer not to singleout any particular publication.

And, of course, we try to keep ourselves up to date –amongst other things by participating in the annual bookfair in Frankfurt. This year we also took part in the Children’sBook Fair in the Øksne Hall, in Copenhagen.

We are presently working on several original Faroesetitles that will be published in the autumn, including thetwo children’s books I mentioned, by Brynhild Andreasenand Liss Hansen – and something as uncharacteristic ofour publishing house as a cookery book! It’s a book ofseafood recipes, Góður matur úr sjónum (Delicacies fromthe Ocean), which students from the Fiskivinnuskoelanumin Vestmanna have written. In addition, there’s a bookabout the weather on the Faroe Islands over a period of120 years, by the meteor ologist, Petur Skeel Jacobsen,and the photographer, Alan Brockie.